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IT Governance • Risk • Compliance
Identify risks.
Solid evidence.Confident audits.

Audit Readiness & IT GRC Consulting for Growing Companies

With 15+ years in IT governance, risk, and compliance, we help small and mid-sized businesses, startups, and regulated organizations get audit ready without the unnecessary complexity.

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Frameworks & standards we work with
FFIECGLBASOC 2 PCI DSSISO 27001NIST CSFNIST 800-53
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Years in GRC & compliance
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Frameworks & standards covered
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Clients served
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Audit-defensible outcomes
Sound familiar?

Tired of the same compliance headaches?

  • ✗

    Scrambling before audits with no clear evidence trail

  • ✗

    Overcomplicated frameworks that don't match your size or complexity

  • ✗

    Annual penetration tests as your only window into real risk

  • ✗

    Policies that no longer reflect your actual infrastructure

You need defensible, right-sized controls.

Not more theory. Not another 300-page framework. A practical program that stands up to examiner scrutiny the first time.

  • ✓Clear scope with audit-ready documentation
  • ✓Practical FFIEC/GLBA and SOC 2 alignment
  • ✓Evidence packages built for auditors
  • ✓Right-sized recommendations for your team
  • ✓Year-round visibility, not just annual snapshots
Modern open conference room with floor-to-ceiling windows
15+
Years in GRC
& Banking Work
About IronRoot

Built from inside the audit process

IronRoot Risk Consultants was founded by a compliance professional with over 15 years of experience in IT governance, risk, and compliance, including deep, hands-on work in banking-regulated environments and SOC 2 readiness.

"We build programs that stand up to examiner scrutiny, not just best-practice theory."

Our approach is direct, practical, and focused on outcomes that hold up when it matters most. No bloated methodology. No deliverables that collect dust.

Right-Sized Assessments

An honest current-state view and a roadmap that fits your team.

Banking Readiness

Practical FFIEC/GLBA alignment with audit-friendly documentation.

Evidence That Holds Up

Artifacts and narratives designed for auditors and examiners.

Senior-Level Work

No junior consultants. You get direct expertise on every engagement.

Services

IT GRC services built for audit readiness

Senior-level assessments and readiness support, designed to move you forward with confidence, not paperwork for its own sake.

Audit Readiness & Gap Assessments

For: SOC 2 readiness, PCI DSS, regulatory exams, internal audit prep
  • Scoped control and evidence review aligned to your audit target
  • Clear findings with severity and practical remediation steps
  • Audit interview prep and "what to show" guidance
  • Prioritized roadmap your team can actually execute
Outcome

Walk into the audit with clarity, defensible documentation, and fewer surprises.

IT Risk Assessments

For: Organizations needing a current-state risk view
  • Interviews and evidence collection across people, process, and technology
  • Risk visibility inputs with clear ownership and next steps
  • Right-sized control recommendations, no unnecessary bureaucracy
Outcome

A practical baseline for planning, budgeting, and audit defensibility.

Vulnerability Management Advisory

For: Teams wanting year-round risk visibility
  • Vulnerability management program design: scope, cadence, and ownership
  • Triage and prioritization tied to real risk
  • Reporting that supports audit and leadership updates
Outcome

Consistent visibility and a repeatable process your auditors can follow.

Cloud Control Alignment

For: Organizations after (or mid) cloud migration
  • Policy updates mapped to cloud architecture and shared responsibility
  • Access controls and logging expectations that match your environment
  • Evidence guidance for auditors (what proves the control in the cloud)
Outcome

Controls that reflect how you actually operate, without rewriting everything.

AI Risk & Governance Advisory

For: Organizations adopting AI tools or products
  • AI risk identification and classification across your environment
  • Governance framework alignment for AI use cases
  • Policy and oversight structure recommendations
Outcome

A governance posture that keeps pace with AI adoption without stifling it.

FFIEC/GLBA Readiness

For: Community banks & financial institutions
  • Current-state review against FFIEC IT Examination Handbook
  • GLBA Safeguards Rule compliance mapping
  • Examiner-ready documentation and evidence packages
Outcome

Exam-ready posture with documentation that satisfies regulators.

Third-Party Risk (TPRM)

For: Organizations managing vendor relationships
  • Vendor inventory and risk tiering framework
  • Due diligence questionnaire design and review process
  • Ongoing monitoring structure and documentation
Outcome

A scalable TPRM program that satisfies regulators and gives you real visibility.

Our Approach

A calm, outcome-driven process

No chaos. No mystery. Just a focused path from assessment to evidence your auditors will accept.

01
Assess

Current-state review, structured interviews, and evidence collection across your people, processes, and technology.

02
Prioritize

Risk-based roadmap with quick wins first and longer-term improvements clearly scoped with defined ownership.

03
Build

Controls, updated policies, and practical implementation guidance designed for your team's actual capacity.

04
Prove

Evidence packages and auditor-ready narratives aligned to scope, artifacts that hold up under real scrutiny.

Industries

Who we serve: growing companies, startups & regulated institutions

We specialize in environments where audit defensibility isn't optional, it's essential.

Small, Mid-Market & Growing Companies

Right-sized GRC programs for organizations scaling their compliance posture ahead of audits or investor scrutiny, including startups facing their first SOC 2 or customer security review.

SOC 2 Readiness

Gap assessments, evidence collection, and pre-audit prep for Type I and Type II engagements.

Cloud Modernization

Control alignment and policy updates for organizations after (or mid) cloud migration.

Community Banks & Credit Unions

FFIEC/GLBA readiness and IT risk programs built for banking timelines and examiner expectations.

Recent Engagement

Real outcomes from real engagements

A look at what a typical IronRoot engagement delivers in practice.

Engagement 01: FFIEC Gap Assessment & Network Security
Client Situation

A regional bank approaching an upcoming FFIEC IT examination needed an independent review of their security posture. Internal teams lacked the capacity to objectively assess their own controls, and leadership had open questions about exposure across network security, patch management, and vendor oversight. No formal gap assessment had been conducted in several years, and the bank had no visibility into whether unauthorized wireless activity was present on their network.

What We Did
  • Conducted a comprehensive FFIEC/GLBA gap assessment spanning access control, patch management, incident response, vendor management, and information security governance, producing a prioritized findings report with severity ratings, root cause analysis, and remediation steps mapped to examination criteria
  • Performed an internal rogue wireless assessment across all physical locations, scanning for unauthorized or misconfigured access points operating within the bank's environment
  • Conducted an internal vulnerability scan and delivered a tiered findings report with remediation guidance prioritized by exploitability and business impact
Outcome

The bank used the gap assessment findings to build an examiner-ready remediation roadmap before their scheduled exam. The rogue wireless assessment identified unauthorized access points that were removed prior to the review. The vulnerability scan surfaced unpatched systems that had gone undetected during routine IT maintenance, all remediated within the agreed timeline. The bank entered their examination with documented evidence of remediation in progress.

(Engagement details anonymized for confidentiality.)

Engagement 02: Cloud Security Program
Client Situation

Mid-sized organization migrating from on-prem infrastructure to cloud-hosted systems, with limited visibility into how their security controls translated to the new environment.

What We Did
  • Updated security policies to align with cloud architecture and shared responsibility model
  • Designed an internal vulnerability scanning program with defined cadence and ownership
  • Established recurring risk visibility between annual penetration tests
Outcome

Improved year-round security visibility and significantly stronger audit defensibility, without disrupting ongoing migration work.

(Engagement details anonymized for confidentiality.)

Get Started

Ready to stop scrambling
before audits?

A 20-minute Compliance Snapshot call is all it takes to understand where you stand and what a right-sized engagement looks like for your organization.

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Straight answers to the questions we hear most.

Engagements begin with a scoping conversation to understand your audit targets, team structure, and timeline. We then conduct structured interviews and evidence collection, produce a findings report with clear severity ratings and remediation steps, and deliver a prioritized roadmap. Most assessments run 2–6 weeks depending on scope and organizational size.
No. We work alongside your team, not instead of it. IronRoot is an advisory practice. We provide the GRC expertise, structure, and deliverables your internal team needs to move forward confidently. Your IT staff remain responsible for implementing controls; we provide the roadmap, documentation, and audit-readiness framework to support that work.
We work across FFIEC IT Examination Handbook, GLBA Safeguards Rule, SOC 2 (Trust Services Criteria), PCI DSS, ISO 27001, NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), and NIST 800-53. If your organization has a specific regulatory requirement not listed here, reach out. We're happy to discuss fit before any engagement begins.
You get senior-level expertise on every engagement, not junior staff following a playbook. We don't over-engineer solutions or produce deliverables that collect dust. Our work is right-sized to your organization, focused on practical outcomes, and designed to hold up under actual examiner scrutiny.
The Compliance Snapshot is a free 20-minute intake call. We'll ask about your audit targets, current state, and timeline, then give you a clear, honest read on where you stand and what kind of engagement would actually help. No sales pitch. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you.
It depends on scope: the size of your environment, the framework, and how much evidence already exists. IronRoot scopes engagements as fixed-fee wherever possible so there's no meter running. You'll get a straight number after a short conversation about your situation. That's exactly what the free Compliance Snapshot call is for. If the honest answer is that you don't need a full engagement, we'll tell you that too.
Plan in months, not weeks. A readiness assessment takes a few weeks, remediation depends on your gaps, and a Type 2 report requires an observation window on top of that. If a customer is waiting on your SOC 2, the most useful thing we can give you early is a realistic sequence you can communicate to them.
No. First-timers are exactly who benefits most from readiness support, because the expensive mistakes happen early: scoping too broadly, promising dates you can't hit, or walking into interviews unprepared. You don't need audit experience. You need a team that's been on the inside of the process.
A Type 1 report covers the design of your controls at a single point in time. A Type 2 covers design plus operating effectiveness over a review period, and it's what most customers ultimately want. A Type 1 can be a useful stepping stone while your Type 2 window runs. We help you pick the right sequence for your situation.
No, and that's deliberate. SOC 2 audits are performed by licensed CPA firms, and your readiness advisor should be separate from your auditor. That keeps the audit clean and independent. IronRoot gets you ready, helps you select an auditor if you need one, and preps your team for the process.
It means knowing what the auditor or examiner will find before they find it. In practice: controls mapped to the framework, gaps identified and being addressed, evidence organized and producible, and your team prepared for interviews. Readiness is the difference between an audit that confirms what you already know and one that surprises you in writing.
Most clients are small and mid-sized: startups facing their first SOC 2, growing companies preparing for audits or investor scrutiny, and community financial institutions. The work is right-sized by design. A ten-person company and a two-hundred-person company don't need the same program, and neither needs an enterprise methodology.
Yes. IronRoot supports PCI DSS readiness and gap assessments: scoping your cardholder data environment, mapping controls to the requirements, and getting your evidence in order before a QSA assessment or self-assessment questionnaire. Same approach as everything else: right-sized, evidence-first, no drama.
IronRoot is advisory, so your team keeps ownership of implementation. But we don't disappear after the findings report. You get a prioritized roadmap, practical implementation guidance sized to your team's capacity, and support along the way. We don't replace your IT staff or sell you a managed service you don't need.
Yes. Community banks and credit unions are a core part of the practice. IronRoot's work in banking-regulated environments and FFIEC/GLBA exam preparation means we know what examiners are looking for, and that's the difference between guessing and knowing.
You get a clear, honest read on where you stand and what kind of engagement would actually help, usually within a day. If there's a fit, you'll receive a scoped proposal with a fixed fee. If there isn't, we'll say so and point you in a better direction. Either way, you leave knowing more than you came in with, and there's no follow-up sales sequence.
IronRoot is based in Colorado and works with clients nationwide. Most engagements run remotely, which keeps costs down and scheduling simple. For work that benefits from being on site, such as physical walkthroughs or wireless assessments, we travel.
Contact

Request a consultation

Tell us what you're trying to accomplish and your timeline. We'll follow up with a clear recommendation, no sales runaround.

Colorado-based, serving clients nationwide
Typical response within 1 business day
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